Scorpion Tailed Spider

Facts about Scorpion Tailed Spiders, "Scientific name for Scorpion Tailed Spider is Archnura higginsi". Scorpion tailed spider is also known as scorpion spider or tailed spider. It is found in Africa, Australia and Madagascar. Scorpion spiders build webs where they stay day and night. The Scorpion Tailed Spider tails are harmless and when they are disturbed they normally curl up them to scare the enemies. This is where the Scorpion Tailed Spider get their name from. They rarely bite but even when they do the symptoms are not very severe. One gets just minor pains and swelling which are easily treatable.

Males are similar to the female Scorpion Tailed Spider but are more reddish. They are also smaller at about 2 mm and don’t have a tail at all. Female bodies have shades of brown and cream but mostly fawn with a black tip of the end of the abdomen. The Scorpion Tailed Spider legs and dephalothorax are darker brown and juveniles have bright colors which are yellow through pink. The females are around 15 mm long. It is add to see scorpion tailed spiders when they are on their webs because they look like dry leaves.

Scorpion tailed spiders build permanent orb web which are incomplete close to foliage on. The Scorpion Tailed Spider cannot tolerate living in places where there is a tendency of drying up so they like living in burrows. The webs are suspended on an angle but do not have a V-shaped section at the top. During late summer the female Scorpion Tailed Spider produces woolly yellowish eggs sacs which they string up in a line to fill the missing section of the webs. The eggs sacs are placed from the center to the top of the missing V-section. These eggs sacs are normally camouflaged with debris.

The female Scorpion Tailed Spiders always sit at the bottom of the string web at the center, but the male ones loves to stay at the edge of the web. A single orb web may have so many webs but each stays on its own. the female Scorpion Tailed Spider cannot stay in the same web.

In the Scorpion Tailed Spider the oxygen is bound to "hemocyanin" a copper-based protein that turns their blood blue, a molecule that contains copper rather than iron. Iron-based hemoglobin in red blood cells turns the blood red

Scorpion Tailed Spiders have two body parts, the front part of the body is called the Cephalothorax-(the thorax and fused head of spiders). Also on this part of the body is the spider’s gland that makes the poison and the stomach, fangs, mouth, legs, eyes and brain. Scorpion Tailed Spiders also have these tiny little leg-type things called (pedipalps) that are next to the fangs. They are used to hold food while the Scorpion Tailed Spider bites it. The next part of the Scorpion Tailed Spiders body is the abdomen and the abdomens back end is where there is the spinnerets and where the silk producing glands are located.

The muscles in a Scorpion Tailed Spiders legs pull them inward, but the spider can't extend its legs outward. It will pump a watery liquid into its legs that pushes them out. A Scorpion Tailed Spider’s legs and body are covered with lots of hair and these hairs are water-repellent, which trap a thin layer of air around the body so the Scorpion Tailed Spiders body doesn't get wet. It allows them to float, this is how some spiders can survive under water for hours. A Scorpion Tailed Spider feels its prey with chemo sensitive hairs on its legs and than feels if the prey is edible. The leg hair picks up smells and vibrations from the air. There are at minimum, two small claws that are at the end of the legs. Each Scorpion Tailed Spiders leg has six joints, giving the spider 48 leg joints. The Scorpion Tailed Spider’s body has oil on it, so the spider doesn't stick to it’s own web.

A Scorpion Tailed Spiders stomach can only take liquids, so a Scorpion Tailed Spider needs to liquefy their food before they eat. They bite on their prey and empty its stomach liquids into the pray which turns it into a soup for them to drink.

A male Scorpion Tailed Spider has two appendages called "pedipalps" a sensory organ, instead of a penis, which is filled with sperm and insert by the male into the female Scorpion Tailed Spider’s reproductive opening.

Spiders do not have a skeletons. They have a hard outer shell called an exoskeleton-(a rigid external covering for the body in some invertebrate animals). The exoskeleton is hard, so it can’t grow with the spider. The young spiders need to shed their exoskeleton. The Scorpion Tailed Spider has to climb out of the old shell through the cephalothorax. Once out, they must spread themselves out before the new exoskeleton will harden. Know they have some room to grow. They stop growing once they fill this shell. Female spiders are usually bigger than males.

Spiders belong to a group of animals called "arachnids", mites and Scorpions and a tick is also in the arachnid family. An Arachnids is a creature with eight legs, two body parts, no antennae or wings and are not able to chew on food. Spiders are not insects because insects have three main body parts and six legs and most insects have wings.

The Arachnids are even in a larger group of animals called "arthropods" an invertebrate animal of the large phylum Arthropoda, which also include spiders, crustaceans and insects. They are the largest group in the animal world, about 80% of all animals come from this group. There are over a million different species. There are more than 40,000 different types of spiders in the world.

Scorpion Tailed Spiderss have oversize brains. Female Scorpion Tailed Spiders lay eggs on a bed of silk, which she creates right after mating. Once the female Scorpion Tailed Spider lays her eggs, she will than cover them with more silk.